“What I see that is hopeful is what I’ve been calling “leadership from the bottom.” Mainly I believe that without funding from governments or foundations, without official permission or approval or even awareness, many people are now working hard to bring farming, ranching, and forestry into line with ecological principles; to apply appropriate standards of judgment to their work; and to restore local economies—beginning with food. The people who are doing this work started doing it typically because they saw the almost-perfect destructiveness of industrialism, and they hoped to do better….”

“…Another of the 12 marks is to relocate “to the abandoned places of Empire.” New Monastics have done this quite well. But sadly, years — and sometimes decades — after an intentional community has been planted in a minority neighborhood, the community’s membership continues to remain predominantly (if not exclusively) white. What are the reasons for the membership to remain so homogenous? One thing is for certain: The idea of “us and them” is perpetuated when an intentional community does not actively seek to diversify its membership.

New Monastic communities need to be redemptive communities where all, regardless of ethnicity, national identity, or economic status, are invited to participate in the communal rhythm of Christian living. As Eliacin Rosario-Cruz, a friend and fellow communitarian, recently said, “The current wave of New Monasticism needs the life and spirit that minorities bring because it is a more complete expression of what the kingdom is, not the other way around.”

The current generation of progressive Christians has done amazing work in broadening the social agenda among evangelicals, but now it’s time that we trust what our hearts and minds believe and actively pursue the reconciliation we talk about. The next step, rather than being a voice for the “voiceless,” is to hand the mic over to indigenous community leaders and ask them to facilitate the conversation so that we might grow and deepen in relationship with one another and with God.

Every one of us in this movement needs to plead with God to make us ministers of reconciliation. We must pray for eyes to see the structural racism perpetuated by unjust policies and a shared history of colonialism and slavery. Some of us will need to repent of inaction and empty rhetoric. Others simply need to heed what the Lord is already speaking. All of us will need to affirm affirmative action in our communal houses, and actively pursue reconciliation.

We are hopeful that the New Monastic movement will be a diverse, Christ-centered, Spirit-led movement. And if all of us in this conversation will extend transparency, grace, and love to one another, we will surely disable the structural racism that has infected the church for far too long. And then we will be able to truly proclaim Jubilee!”

“In the past weeks I have spent some time wrestling with issues related to the environment and creation care. I have been seeking distinctly Christian wisdom on this issue, seeking to learn how we, as Christians, are to understand this world and our role in its care and protection. Last week I turned to Francis Schaeffer’s Pollution and the Death of Man hoping and even expecting that it would answer some of my deepest questions. …”